


Children of the Forest Side-Stories

by garafthel (sister_wolf)



Series: Children of the Forest, Children of the Stone [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, M/M, OMC/Legolas (one-sided), alcoholic parent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1233856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/garafthel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side-stories and ficlets set in the universe of Children of the Forest, Children of the Stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of the Forest Side-Stories

**Author's Note:**

> Cirdolas grows up and finds his place in the world. 
> 
> Warnings: Cirdolas's father is an alcoholic. There is also a little bit of underaged-for-Elves kissing.

SPRING

Cirdolas opened the door to his father's study, cautiously assessing the situation. His father had fallen asleep at his desk again, head pillowed on a stack of reports next to the bare dregs of a bottle of wine. A tray of food, barely picked-at, sat abandoned on a side table. 

Shaking his head, Cirdolas went to fetch a blanket.

His father stirred as he draped the blanket over him. "Cirdolas." 

"Yes, _Ada_?"

"Your mother--she would be so proud of you." Sitting up and drawing the blanket around his shoulders, his father smiled blearily at him, eyes filling with tears. "You look just like her."

"I know, _Ada_." Cirdolas forced a smile, trying to hide the frustration and guilt that he always felt when his father was in this kind of mood. 

Galion drinking wine in company was charming and witty, the master of the barbed comment and the veiled innuendo. Galion drinking wine alone was a very different creature. Sometimes the wine made him angry and bitter; sometimes it left him maudlin and sentimental. Cirdolas would almost prefer him angry, because at least he knew how to react to that. His father acting sad and vulnerable always left him feeling wrong-footed and guilty.

"She could have left, you know. When the Queen sailed to Valinor... your mother was her handmaiden. The Queen offered her a place with her in the Undying Lands." Tears trickled from the corners of Galion's eyes.

Early spring, the time when his mother had almost sailed to Valinor, had always been difficult for his father. Cirdolas laid a hand on his father's shoulder. "You didn't finish your dinner. I'll have the kitchen heat up some broth for you."

"I am not hungry. Stop fussing," Galion said, turning his face away.

"Yes, _Ada_." Cirdolas sighed and busied himself clearing the empty wine bottle and glass from the desk, adding them to the tray. A servant would carry it down to the kitchen in the morning.

"She should have left. She never should have stayed." His father was staring down at his own hands, spread out palm-up and empty in his lap. "She would still be alive if I had not been so selfish that I convinced her to stay with me rather than sail to the Blessed Land."

" _Ada_..." This was a well-worn path, but no less painful for its familiarity.

"She was all the light and beauty in the world, as if a star had fallen from the night sky and taken the form of a woman. And I killed her as sure as if I had wielded the filthy Orc blade myself."

"You did not kill her," Cirdolas said, dragging patience up from the pit of his stomach. "The Orcs did."

Galion pressed his hands over his face. "Leave me to my grief. I am not fit company for anyone tonight." When Cirdolas hesitated, he dropped his hands and shouted, "Go!"

Cirdolas hurried from the room. Shutting the door to the study, he leaned against it for a few minutes with his eyes closed. Inside, he could hear the sound of a bottle being uncorked. A pause, and then a shattering sound as if a glass had been thrown at a stone wall, followed by the muffled sounds of his father crying.

Cirdolas opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, dry-eyed. He loved his father, he did, but he couldn't take another year of this, another decade, another _century_.

Joining the Forest Guard had been a daydream, an idle fancy, for many years. Somehow the timing never seemed right; every time he'd seriously considered it, it always seemed as if his father needed him too much to leave. Standing in the hallway in the middle of the night listening to the sound of his father crumbling apart, Cirdolas made his decision.

In the morning, when his father had recovered sufficiently from his wine sickness to feel guilty for his actions, Cirdolas would broach the subject of joining the Forest Guard. He would sell it to his father as a way to make contacts and potentially gain favor with Prince Legolas. 

All the while Cirdolas would know what it really was. 

His way out.

***

WINTER

The castle was draped in holly and mistletoe for the winter solstice. A great feast was always held at midnight on the longest night of the year, followed by hours of revelry as the Elves of the Woodland Realm awaited the return of the sun. 

After the feast was over, the children and younger Elves were sent to bed while the adults danced and drank until dawn. Not quite old enough for the revelries, Cirdolas had pretended to obediently return to the quarters he shared with his father after the feast. He doubled back after he left the feasting hall and took a circuitous route through back halls, storerooms, and little-used servants' stairs to an unused walkway that ran around the top of the feasting hall. 

Gwithindil was already there, lying on the floor with his head just poking past the edge of the walkway. He scooted backwards on his belly as soon as he noticed Cirdolas's arrival. Propping himself up on his elbows, the other boy grinned at him. "You're late! They've almost started the dancing."

"Sorry. I had to take a longer route than usual. There was a couple in the storeroom I usually go through to get to the stairs."

Gwithindil's eyebrows wrinkled. "A couple of what?"

"A guardsman and a maid. You know."

"Making the beast with two backs?" Gwithindil laughed as Cirdolas felt himself flush bright red with embarrassment. 

Having grown up among the kitchen servants, the other boy was much more worldly than him. His father would sniff in disapproval and call Gwithindil "common," but Cirdolas didn't care what his father thought. Gwithindil was around his age (give or take a few decades) and he wasn't intimidated by the fact that Cirdolas's father was the Steward. Gwithindil was not just his friend--he was his only friend.

"They were...dallying." Rolling his eyes at Gwithindil's chortling, Cirdolas dropped to his hands and knees and crawled forward so that he too could look down into the feasting hall. 

The dancers stood in two lines, facing each other with their hands raised to form an arch between the lines of dancers. As the music began the dancers broke apart and joined back together in an intricate, twirling dance.

"Oh, they're opening with the ode to Eärendil and Elwing ... it's so beautiful," Gwithindil sighed, his eyes closing as he listened to the music.

"You're missing the dancing." Cirdolas dug his elbow into Gwithindil's side.

"The music is so wonderful, though." The other boy sighed and opened his pale blue eyes. He had the blond, fair coloring of his Sindar father, belying his low status as a kitchen boy. Cirdolas, cursed with the red hair and freckles of his Silvan heritage, envied the other boy for that.

"Oh, look, Prince Legolas is dancing... where is Tauriel, though? Why is she not at the feast?" Cirdolas frowned, concerned by the separation between his two favorite people.

"I have a question." Smiling at Cirdolas mischievously, Gwithindil rolled on his side and leaned his head on his hand. "Which of them are you in love with? Because I've been trying to figure it out and I just can't tell."

Cirdolas flopped onto his back and covered his eyes with his arm. "Do be quiet, you troll."

"I want to know." The other boy was suddenly much closer, leaning over him. "Which is it? The Prince, or the lady warrior?"

"I'm not in love with Tauriel! I just respect her greatly and strive to live up to her example." Cirdolas dropped his arm from his eyes, resting it above his head on the cool marble, and made a despairing noise. "I'm in love with Prince Legolas. At least I think I am. As much as you can be in love with someone you've never spoken to."

"Oh, that was the answer I was hoping for." 

Cirdolas's eyebrows wrinkled. "Why?"

"This." Gwithindil leaned down to kiss him, his lips brushing softly against Cirdolas's for a few moments before he lifted his head again and asked, "Is it alright if I kiss you?"

"You already have done, without my permission." Cirdolas dropped his pretended scowl when the other boy looked apologetic and started to draw away. "I did not say that it was unwelcome."

Gwithindil hesitated. "But is it _welcome_?"

"Yes," Cirdolas breathed, drawing him down into another kiss. 

They traded soft kisses back and forth, lying on the balcony far above the revelers. Gwithindil wasn't Legolas, but in the dim light with the music drifting up to them, his pale blond hair and blue eyes were close enough that Cirdolas could almost convince himself that it was real.

***

AUTUMN

Tauriel and the old Dwarven healer were leaning over Kili's unconscious body, talking intensely about _athelas_ and other things that Cirdolas didn't entirely understand (and didn't think he wanted to, either.) He looked away from them, assessing the state of the little house. Orcs lay where they had fallen, lying with limbs splayed among the shattered remains of furniture and dishes.

Sigrid was sitting against the wall of the living room, as far from any of the Orcs as she could get, holding a crying Tilda in her lap. Sigrid's eyes were closed, her face drained of color. There was a streak of dark blood across one of her cheeks.

"Lad, why don't you take your sisters into the other room while Cirdolas and I clean up?" Bofur asked Bain quietly.

"I can help," Bain protested, but his heart didn't seem to be in it.

"Your wee sister needs both of you. Now shoo."

Once the children were safely shut in one of the bedrooms, Bofur looked around, shaking his head. "You're alright with handling dead Orcs, lad?"

Cirdolas took a deep breath and stiffened his spine. He never had before, but he was the Captain's apprentice now. He couldn't let her down. "Yes. I can handle it."

Bofur appraised him with a sharp eye. "Good," he said, apparently seeing something in the way Cirdolas held himself. "Let's toss the trash in the lake. Not the best solution, but it'll get them out of the house at any rate."

With the two of them working, they had the Orc corpses cleared out of the house in short order. There was not much they could do about the blackish blood splashed across the walls and floor, but they did the best they could with buckets of lake water and a rag mop.

"That's the worst of it, I think," Bofur said, leaning on the rag mop. 

Over at the table, Tauriel and Oin were doing something with the _athelas_ , making it into a paste Cirdolas thought. He sighed, at loose ends now that the corpses were cleared away.

"Now that's a big sigh." Bofur tipped his hat back, eyeing Cirdolas consideringly. "What's the matter, then, lad? I may be just a Dwarf but I've got a fair number of nephews and wee cousins. I know a troubled sigh when I hear one."

Cirdolas chewed on the end of one of his braids, a bad habit from childhood that he only reverted to under stress. "It's just...I'm probably never going to be able to return to the Woodland Realm. I've left everything, my home, my father..."

"And you're regretting it?"

"No." Cirdolas shook his head. "No. I have no idea what is to become of us, and yet I still cannot bring myself to regret any of it. Does that...make sense?"

Then there was the part he couldn't say because he didn't yet know what to think of it. Legolas had looked right at Cirdolas and spoken his name, and it was the least important thing that had happened that day. Cirdolas had spent so long truly believing that he was in love with the Prince. Now he had to face the possibility that all it had ever been was an infatuation.

"That's just life, lad." Bofur had kind eyes, but there was a terrible depth of sadness to them too, Cirdolas thought. "Sometimes it throws you like an earthquake, puts things out of order and messes up all of your plans. Sometimes it sweeps everything away like a flash flood, leaving nothing behind. All you can do is hold onto the people who are important to you."

"Sigrid and Tilda." Cirdolas felt a smile tugging at the edge of his lips. "And Ori. I'm sure he's happier than a rabbit in clover, running all around Erebor trying to write down everything at once. And _Minui_ , of course. Tauriel," he clarified, though Bofur already seemed to know who he meant. "I feel like...everything that's happened has been worth it, because it's brought them into my life."

"Hold onto that feeling. That'll get you through the rough bits," Bofur said, clapping his hand on his shoulder. "Ah, looks like they might be done over there. I'm going to see how Kili and the lass are doing."

Cirdolas had heard all his life that Dwarves were harsh, uncaring, as cold as the stone that they loved. It wasn't true, he thought, watching Bofur offer his shoulder to help an unsteady Tauriel support herself as they walked out to the front porch. It wasn't true at all.

"'Dolas, there you are," Sigrid said, leaning out of the bedroom and motioning to him. "Come on, Tilda's been asking for you." 

Even though it seemed like he'd lost everything--family, friends, home--he hadn't, not really. 

He'd found them, in the unlikeliest place imaginable.

***

SUMMER

Cirdolas wasn't looking where he was going, chubby legs pumping hard as he ran across the courtyard away from the older children who were being mean to him. He collided against a pair of legs and fell flat on his butt, tears spilling from the corners of his eyes from the shock.

"Are you well, little one?" a soft voice asked. The very tall person (from his perspective) crouched down, bringing concerned-looking green eyes into his field of vision. The eyes belonged to a woman with bright red hair, so long that it almost brushed the tiles of the courtyard when she crouched.

"You have really pretty hair," Cirdolas said, sniffling. "Are you a lady?"

She smiled. "I am female, yes, but I think you mean a lady of the court. I am a warrior, a member of the Forest Guard."

He stared up at her in fascination. "What's the Forest Guard?"

"We protect the Woodland Realm from Orcs, wargs, giant spiders--anything that threatens the peace of the realm."

"That sounds scary." Cirdolas chewed on the end of his braid absently.

"It can be, but it is very important. We protect the forest so that you can live in safety."

Someone called from across the courtyard, "Tauriel, come! We are leaving."

"In a moment!" She looked down at Cirdolas again. "Let me help you up."

She helped him to his feet without rising out of her crouch, so that they were on eye-level when he stood. "All right?"

Cirdolas nodded, then remembered his manners. "I thank you for your kindness."

She bowed her head in acknowledgement and smiled at him. "I have to go kill some spiders now. Be safe, little one."

Eyes wide, Cirdolas watched her walk away across the sun-drenched courtyard. She had long knives sheathed in her belt and a bow strapped across her back, and she walked like a warrior out of the stories his _nana_ read to him.

Some day, he was going to become a warrior and protect the forest. Just like her.

**Author's Note:**

> translations:
> 
> ada - daddy  
> minui - first  
> nana - mommy


End file.
